For a bit more detail on the project I have included the project abstract.

The Usability Testing Suite that I created during SoC 2008 needs additional work in order to make it ready for use. The existing module provides a powerful API that makes writing data collection plug-ins simple, but the user interface needs refinement and a screen recording plug-in would make the module much more helpful. Through this project I intend to finalize the Usability Testing Suite and make it ready for widespread use.

One of the major enhancements made to the Drupal development cycle has been the addition of a fully automated testing bot, built on the testing framework in Drupal 7.

This session will focus on automated testing as it relates to Drupal 7: its history and direction, the automated testing bot: what has gone into it and where the future leads, and most importantly what is the end gain to the Drupal community.

The framework has gone through a rather long and interesting history with a number of road-blocks and challenges that have been overcome. The session will tell the story of the framework and the benefits it provides to the community through the enhanced Drupal 7 development work-flow. Although the session will go into some technical details it will overall tell the story of the framework and where we plan to take it. The presentation should be interesting to most and provide a great time to throw out any comments or concerns.

After the presentation I will stick around to discuss our recent launch of the Boombatower Testing Service (BTS). If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please drop by.

I talked with Chad "hunmonk" Phillips about it in IRC and discovered that is was due to the new File API. Drupal.org was put in maintenance mode, as many of you probably noticed, and Chad dove into the code. After discussing for a while a "fix" was created.

The moral of the story...yet another bug found due to SimpleTest (the patch I was posting was related to SimpleTest). That of course is not to say it would not have been found soon enough, but SimpleTest indirectly found it first. :)

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Situation
The SimpleTest browser that is included in the Drupal 7 core is very powerful and I have found myself hacking in order to use it outside of SimpleTest on a number of occasions, as have others. In addition the DrupalWebTestCase is becoming rather bloated. There is an issue to create pluggable backends for drupal_http_request which could be cleanly done by abstracting the SimpleTest browser. The change would create a clean and more powerful API as well as open up a number of possibilities by having a browser built into Drupal core and thus is something worth working on.

Solution
A while back I did some work towards abstracting the SimpleTest browser, not only out of DrupalWebTestCase, but improving/cleaning the code and writing it with a pluggable backend layer. The code is quite far along and just needs a bit more refinement before it can replace the existing SimpleTest browser. The next step would be to replace drupal_http_request or make it a wrapper. After that, areas of core that parse HTML and such can be cleaned up and simplified using the browser.

Possibilities
With a browser in core there are a number of powerful tools that can very easily be added. For instance install and update scripts that can trigger remote servers!! Think of having a single script on a development machine that runs the update script on all specified sites!

Installing via a script can be very usefull not only for the obvious, but also for modules like the Usability Testing Suite and Project Issue File Review that have to make separate installations of Drupal and currently must maintain their own install scripts. Having an abstracted installation script is necessary for testing.drupal.org to be able to function with patches that make changes to the installer.

I plan to work on this further, but have been busy with other projects lately and my recent video card experience. I would like to hear some feedback from the community and possibly recruit some help.

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The graphics card on my development machine died New Years Eve and thus I am without a development environment for the time being. I will order a new graphics card and a few other parts today or tomorrow so I should be back in business within the week.

Sorry for any delays in development.

Thanks for the support. (chx has graciously donated to my cause. :) )

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After my most recent post concerning the Testbed design change and development I received a number of comments that lead me to believe that the post was misunderstood. The comments suggest that the readers believe my primary focus of development will be changing from a push to a pull model. The post seems to have been misleading in that regard.

The change to a pull architecture is a very minor change in terms of coding, only 2 functions are even effected, but in terms of managing the network it helps out a lot. The majority of the development, that I am raising $3000 for, will be focused on implementing the ideas described in The Future of Automated Patch Testing. The feature additions will:

Give more control to server administrators (donated servers)

Make it easier to manage the automated testing framework

Allow for testing of multiple environment configurations

Open up testing of Drupal 6 core and contrib code.

I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions with the automated testing system as it stands and my plans for its feature.

In order for me to be able to devote significant resources in the short term to get this completed it would very helpful to have funding. I would like to raise $3,000 for the development of the new system.

Before describing the details of the new system, lets look at how the current system works.

Current system

The automated testing system has three stages, or sections, to it. The sections are illustrated in the figure to the right, but I'll give an overview of what they do.

The project server that manages all the issues related to projects. - drupal.org

The testing master server which distributes the testing load and aggregates the results to the appropriate project server. - http:testing.drupal.org

The testing server that performs the patch review and reports back to the master server. - network of servers

New architecture

The automated testing system is classified as a push architecture. That means that the testing master server pushes (ie. sends) patches to each of the testing servers. The new architecture will be based on a client/server model where the test client pull (ie. request) patches to test from the server.

In addition to changing the basic architecture of the system the large feature list will also be implemented. After all is said and done the new system will provide a more powerful tool to the Drupal community.

Reasoning

The motivation for making the change is due to the difficulties we have run into while maintaining the system for the last few weeks.

Adding a testing server requires the entire system to be put on "hold".

There is not an automated way to confirm that a testing server is functioning properly.

When a testing server becomes "messed up" or "un-reachable" the system does not automatically react.

Server administrators cannot simply remove their server from the fleet; they must first inform us that they are doing so.

All this manual intervention adds up to a large amount of time that Chad "hunmonk" Phillips and I have to spend to keep the system running smoothly. As we look to add more servers our time commitment will increase to the point where it is not feasible to maintain the system, thus the changes are required.

The stability of the framework has lead to the addition of over 6 testing servers to the network, with more in the works. Increasing the number of testing servers also means an increased load required to manage the testing network. A fair amount of labor is needed to keep the testing system running smoothly and to watch for Drupal 7 core bug introductions.

Having the testing framework in place has saved patch reviewers, specifically the Drupal 7 core maintainers: Dries and webchick, countless hours that would otherwise have been spent running tests. The automated framework also ensure that tests are run against every patch before it is committed. Ensuring tests are always run has lead to a relatively stable Drupal 7 core that receives updates frequently.

Based on the overwhelming positive feedback and personal evaluation of the framework a number of improvements have been made since its deployment. The enhancements have, of course, lead to further ideas which will make the automated testing system much more powerful than it already is.

Server management

A number of additions have been made to make it easier to manage the testing fleet. The major issue that remains is that of confirming that a testing slave returns the proper results. The process currently requires manual testing and confirmation of the results. The process could be streamlined by adding a facility that would send a number of patches with known results to the testing slave in question. The results returned would then be compared to the expected results.

The system could be used at multiple stages during the testing process. Initially when a testing slave is added to the network it would be automatically confirmed or denied. Once confirmed the server would begin receiving patches for testing. Periodically the server would then be re-tested to ensure that it is still functioning. If not the system would automatically disable the server and notify the related server administrator.

Having this sort of functionality opens up some exciting possibilities as described bellow.

Public server queue

Once the automated server management framework is in place the process of adding servers to the fleet could be exposed to the public. A server donor could create an account on testing.drupal.org, enter their server information, and check back for the results of the automated testing. If errors occur the server administrator would be given common solutions in addition to the debugging facilities already provided by the system.

If the server passes inspection an administrator of testing.drupal.org would be notified. The administrator would then confirm the server donation and add the server to the fleet. Once in the fleet the server would be tested regularly like all the other servers. If the donor wishes to remove their server from the fleet they would request removal of their server on testing.drupal.org. The framework would let any tests finish running and then remove the server automatically.

A system of this kind would provide a powerful and easy way to increase the testing fleet with minimal burden to the testing.drupal.org administrators. Having a larger fleet has a number of benefits that will be discussed further.

Automated core error detection

Automatically testing an un-patched Drupal HEAD checkout after each commit and confirming that all tests pass would ensure that any human mistakes made during the commit process do not cause false test results. In addition to testing the core itself the detection algorithm would also disable the testing framework if drupal.org is unavailable. Currently when drupal.org goes down the testing framework continues to run which causes errors due to the patches not being accessible. Having this sort of system in place would be a great time saver for administrators and ensure that the results are always accurate.

There is currently code in place for this, but it needs expanding and testing.

Multiple database testing

Drupal 7 currently supports three databases and there are plans to support more. Testing patches on each of the databases is crucial to ensure that no database is neglected. Creating such as system would require a few minimal changes to the testing framework to store results related to a particular database, send a patch to be tested on each particular database, and display the results in a logical manor on drupal.org.

Patch reviewing environment

In addition to performing patch testing the framework could also be used to lower the barrier required to review a patch. Instead of having to apply a patch to a local development environment a reviewer would simply be required to press a button on testing.drupal.org after which he/she would be logged into an automatically setup environment with the patch applied.

This sort of system would save reviewers time and would make it much easier for non-developers to review patches, especially for usability issues.

Code coverage reports

Drupal 7 strives to have full test coverage. What that means is that the tests check almost every part of the Drupal core to ensure that every works as intended. It is rather difficult to gage the degree to which core is covered without the use of a code coverage reporting utility. Setting up a utility of that kind is no small task and getting results requires large amounts of CPU time.

The testing framework could be extended to automatically provide code coverage reports on a nightly basis. The reports can then be used, as they have been already, to come up with a plan for writing additional tests to fill the gaps.

Performance ranking

Since the tests are very CPU intensive having a good idea of the performance of a particular testing slave would be useful for ordering which servers are sent patches first. Ensuring that patches are always sent the fastest available testing server will ensure the quickest turn-around of results. The testing framework could automatically collect performance data and use an average to rank the testing server.

Standard VM

Creating a standard virtual machine would have a number of benefits: 1) eliminate most configuration issues, 2) provide consistent results, 3) make the processing of setting up a testing slave easier, and 4) make it possible for one testing server to test patches on different databases. Several virtual machines are currently in the works, but a standard one has yet to be agreed upon.

Benefits

Drupal is somewhat unique in having an automated system like the one in place. The system has already proven to be a beneficial tool and with the addition of these enhancements it will become a more integral part of Drupal development and quality assurance. Maintaining the system will be much easier, reviewing core patches will be simpler, and the testing fleet can be increased in size much more easily.

With a larger testing fleet the testing framework can be expanded to test contributed modules. In addition the framework can be modified to support testing of Drupal 6 and thus enable it to test the large number of contributed modules that have tests written. Having such a powerful tool available to contrib developers will hopefully motivate more developers to write tests for their modules and in doing so increase the stability of contributed code base.

The automated testing framework is just beginning its life-cycle and has already proven its worth, with enhancements like the ones discussed above the framework can continue to provide new tools to the Drupal community.

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The final updates to the testing framework have been placed on drupal.org. The updates will allow issues to be marked as code needs work when the latest eligible patch fails testing.

After a bit of work fixing the latest bugs in core in order to make all tests pass, the testing system has been reset and should now be reporting back to drupal.org again, but this time marking issues as CNW!